


Anthony DiNozzo Jr.

by Niki



Category: NCIS
Genre: Case Fic, Elevator Conferences, Family, Friendship, M/M, Missing Persons, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6276856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You are not my son!”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Isn't that the story of my life,” Anthony DiNozzo Jr. muttered.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a dream I had, all of it: the premise, many of the scenes, even the names. 
> 
> This happens before the team has met Senior, and assumes the knowledge the viewers had at the time of Flesh and Blood is accurate.
> 
> Trope Bingo Round 6 Square: Reunion  
> Hurt/Comfort Bingo Square: Disappearance
> 
> Thank you to Neith for alpha reading – bouncing ideas around with, listening to rewrites – and coming up with the title.

“You're not my son!” bellowed a voice just inside the bullpen and Tim turned to look at the owner of the voice along the rest of the team.

“Isn't that the story of my life,” Anthony DiNozzo Junior muttered, and got up the meet the irate stare of an older man who just had to be Anthony DiNozzo Senior. 

“You are _not_...”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. Not here,” Tony said, and tried to lead their visitor back towards the elevator. 

“But...”

“Not. Here.”

“Was that...?” Tim asked after the two men had disappeared into the elevator. 

“Tony's father? Yes,” Gibbs replied, putting down the receiver he'd used to call the guard at the door, who obviously had provided him with the name of their surprise visitor. Or then Gibbs just was omniscient.

“He disowned Tony when he was twelve,” Ziva said, obviously too distracted to mess up her words.

“I knew that,” Tim said, having heard it from Tony himself. “How did you...?”

She just glanced at him and he briefly wondered what she knew about him and his background and then quickly decided to stop wondering. 

“Back to work, people,” Gibbs said briefly, but Tim could see he was still staring after the men with a scowl. 

Tony didn't return to work for the rest of the day. 

\- - - 

Tony wasn't there in the morning either, and that's when they officially got worried. Well, not 'officially' as that would have meant calling the FBI, as a missing federal agent is always a federal case, and not something they should be investigating themselves. But enough to start combing through the CCTV tapes from the surrounding areas to find out where Tony went with his father.

They got their hands on the security tape from inside a diner they ended up in, showing the booth the two sat in. 

“They look like strangers,” Ziva noted, seeing their body language, and Tim thought her tone was sad.

When had Tony last met his father? Had he ever even seen him as an adult? Tim found the concept hard to grasp despite his own strained relationship with his own father.

Gibbs didn't say a word, but he tensed when it looked like the older man was about to lunge over the table to attack Tony, who then raised his hands in a consoling manner. The two talked for almost fifteen minutes until Senior took what looked like a piece of paper from his wallet, and Tony's face grew even more serious when he saw it. They left soon after, and Tim hadn't been able to trace their destination from that point.

“I want everything you can dig up about Anthony DiNozzo Senior,” Gibbs barked, and Tim and Ziva snapped to.

\- - -

“Turns out DiNozzo senior is less of a business man as Tony always said, and more of a, well, con man,” Tim said, presenting their findings to Gibbs the next day.

“He what?”

“He is not exactly... kosher?” Ziva said.

“I know what it means, I want to know what _you_ mean.”

“His companies haven't ever actually produced anything, yet he's always presented as an affluent businessman. Everyone always thinks he has a lot of things going on, and some invest on things that then fail to materialize, but he's always able to talk his way out of those situations, and when he isn't... well, he can always relocate.”

“Charming.”

“He is, by all accounts. Everyone talks of how nice and supportive he is.”

“Family?”

“Uhh, sort of. He's been married at least seven times. First time to Tony's mother, after her death... well. He seems to have profited nicely from how charming he can be.”

“Kids?”

“None besides Tony, and very few people seem to be aware of his existence.”

“Unless he needed to impress someone with a son who is a federal agent,” Ziva said with audible scorn in her voice. Tim didn't envy the people she had talked with.

“Current location?”

“Unknown. I could trace his credit cards to Washington D.C., up until our front door – he took a cab – but after the diner... Nothing.”

“Is it usual?”

“There are gaps in his history, we only did a cursory check, but he seems to use his cards indiscriminately, even if he occasionally takes some extra time to get his bills paid. He's not been exactly flush recently.”

“Any theories as to why he came to find Tony now?”

“Nothing. Besides, his first words made it sound like _Tony_ had done something to look him up, or expecting him to do something?”

“He hadn't.” Gibbs said it like it was gospel, and Tim swallowed his instinctive protest.

“If you say so.”

\- - -

In the end that line took them absolutely nowhere. Senior had disappeared as thoroughly as Tony. With no leads, they had to start approaching it like any missing person case, and that meant going back to the basics. 

There were no matching John Does in any of the hospitals or morgues in the area, and as they didn't want to make the case public, they couldn't even utilize the police force in the search. The only thing they could do was to try to find something – anything – in Tony's past that would help.

“But surely the background checks were made when he was hired?” Tim said, even as he opened Tony's file—which they all pretty much knew by heart by now—to start.

“We'll do them again,” Gibbs said in the same tight voice he'd been using ever since Tony disappeared. He'd claimed going through the phone logs and bank statements himself, and neither Tim or Ziva had contested his choice, even as they shared a puzzled glance over it.

“We did them too,” Ziva offered. “I did all of you.” She shot an indecipherable look at Gibbs while she said it and Tim wondered, again, what she knew of them. Him.

Gibbs's expression didn't change. 

\- - -

They went to Tony's apartment, and it turned out Gibbs actually had a key there. Tim thought it was a good idea, and considered how he could offer his to their Boss. Okay, maybe just Abby, then. Then again, could he really trust Abby with his keys? At least he'd know Gibbs wouldn't “borrow” his place to host a party. Or house a family of... right, work.

If he hadn't been so worried about Tony and his unexplained absence (okay, he hadn't been really worried until after a full day, Tony was – Tony), he might have enjoyed the peek into the surprisingly well guarded private life of the Senior Agent. As it was... it was surprisingly hard to get to the work mode, and forget the dishes drying by the sink were from a colleague's breakfast, that the magazines on the coffee table belonged to a friend, that the haphazardly made bed was not a crime scene, but a proof of a hasty exit on a day like any other.

Gibbs was stone faced, as always, impossible to tell if this was affecting him at all. Tim shared a look with Ziva, and they got to work.

“He didn't come home on Tuesday,” Gibbs said. “And his cell was off.”

“How do you know?” Ziva frowned, and Gibbs just looked at her, as if it was obvious.

Maybe it was, but Tim hadn't seen Gibbs try to call Tony at any point during the workday. But that wasn't the only thing not adding up about the situation.

“There's no food in the fridge,” Tim said. “There's no trash anywhere – and his closet is almost empty. It... it looks like he left voluntarily.”

“Or like he has not lived here for weeks,” Ziva chimed in.

Gibbs sighed. “He hasn't. Come on, there's nothing here that can help us, he obviously hasn't been back here.”

“Wait, what? Where has Tony been staying?”

“With me.”


	2. Shell-Shock

After that bombshell, Gibbs just drove them back to the Navy Yard.

“Shouldn't we...?”

“No.”

“But...”

“There's nothing in my house that would help.”

“But what if...”

“No.”

So it was back to background checks. 

“How far back do we go? I mean, what do we even think is going on? If he was kidnapped by someone...”

“That would be quite a coincidence.”

“Unless his father set him up.”

“Do we think that is likely?”

“Why would he come here? If he needs money, how can Tony help him?”

“I've been thinking about his words... _You are not my son._ It sounds like disowning him all over again. But there is no more inheritance money to cut him out of, is there?”

“Tony wasn't aware of it if there was.” Again the others had to just take Gibbs's word for it as truth. 

It suddenly struck Tim that Gibbs had been referring to Tony as “Tony” ever since he disappeared, not as DiNozzo. Well, if Tony was staying with him, maybe... but why? That seemed to make no sense. His apartment seemed fine – he knew Tony had stayed over before because of something going wrong in his place, but... Something wasn't adding up here, and he just knew Gibbs was holding something back. It was an anomaly, and to have two anomalies at the same time...

“Why was Tony staying with you?” he asked so absorbed in his train of thought he didn't even flinch even though he was questioning their taciturn boss on something personal.

“It has no bearing on the matter.”

“But how can you be sure, at this point anything could...”

“Not this.”

\- - -

It was probably not surprising it got harder to find information the farther back they went, but Tim still cursed under his breath when he reached Tony's college years and it was next to impossible to find anything beyond his name online.

“Do we really think this matters?” he asked, looking at Gibbs.

Who only glared. Right.

“Right. I'm off to Ohio, then.”

“I doubt we would get the expenses approved for that,” Ziva said from behind her own wall of files. “Not without someone finding out what we are doing.”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“Contacting one of his rat brothers?”

Tim could only stare at her for a second before his nervous energy exploded in a burst of laughter. “Tell me you did that on purpose.”

Ziva's innocent face was just a little too perfect. “Did what?”

“Good idea,” was the only thing Gibbs said, not even bothering to frown at their levity. It felt good to laugh, despite everything. Tim wanted to think Tony would approve.

\- - -

Tim knew he must still look shell-shocked when he returned to the bullpen after his lunch meeting with the closest Alpha Chi Delta member he could find. Ben Greer claimed to not have seen Tony since they graduated in 1989 but was willing enough to dig up his photo albums and reminisce about the old days.

Tim was clutching one of those photos in an envelope in his hand, and without a word motioned for Gibbs and Ziva to follow him back into the elevator – the safest place he could think of in his sudden paranoia.

“So, it turns out that DiNozzo Senior was a little more literal than we thought.”

He dug up a photograph from the envelope, holding it like it was a live hand grenade. It was a snapshot of four men, one of them obviously Tony, recognizable even though he seemed to be in his late teens, early twenties. 

“It is a photograph of Tony,” Ziva said, as if stating the obvious.

“Yes.”

Gibbs didn't say a word, just waited for him to have a point.

“ _That_ is Anthony DiNozzo,” Tim said, pointing to the man to the left of Tony. He was almost the same height, with identical coloring to Tony, but his features were a little rougher, his frame a little stockier. 

“What?”

“ _That_ is Anthony DiNozzo Junior, according to the man I spoke to. This,” he said, resting a finger on 'their' Tony, “is John Hughes.”


	3. Speed and Bluster

Tony managed to get DiNozzo Senior out of the building with speed and bluster and he didn't allow the older man to speak until they were sitting in a back booth of a diner. 

“Where's my son?” 

“You don't have a son, remember? You disowned him at twelve.”

“You weren't there!”

“Heard about it often enough,” Tony countered, edging closer to the territory beyond deniability. 

“Where is he?”

“I don't know,” Tony replied, committed now.

“You have his name and job.”

“Well, I did get the job on my own. I haven't seen Nino since college.”

“Since college?” That seemed to throw the other man.

“Easier back then.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Anthony D. DiNozzo Junior. Have the papers to prove it, too.”

The flippant answer seemed to be too much for the other man who almost came over the table to throttle Tony. 

“Alright! Chill. I was born John Hughes, originally from Arizona. I met Nino in college.”

“How the hell did you end up in Ohio?”

“The same way Nino did—trying to get the hell away from my past. I just took a longer route than him.”

“My son...” started DiNozzo but Tony stopped him with a gesture.

“Your son, whom you disowned and kicked out at twelve, whom you'd hardly seen since he was eight and you could ship him out to schools and camps, wanted nothing to do with you or your family name. As I shared these feelings regarding my own father, we bonded. And one night we came up with the idea of switching. It was insane, but we thought about it even after sobering up. It was still insane. And we still thought we could do it. So we did. We traded pasts, names, and social security numbers, and parted ways. I have not seen John since.”

“Just like that,” DiNozzo said, looking almost dazed, anger momentarily gone. 

“In essence, yes.”

“So he's John Hughes. There must be hundreds of John Hugheses in the States.”

“And even more in Ireland. What the hell do you need him for after all this time?”

“I received this letter.”


	4. Elevator Confessional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: brief mention of non-sexual child abuse
> 
> I might not be able to stick to my one-chapter-a-day update schedule from here... Most of the story is done but the next few chapters need a little work, and I have two sick guys at home, while not feeling very peachy myself. 
> 
> Thank you for your lovely comments! I love how you've shared your reactions with me :)

“Okay, who is John Hughes?” Gibbs asked, after they had returned to their desks and Tim had fired up his computer and completed some discreet searches.

“Someone who netted you a visit from the FBI,” Fornell said, appearing as if out of nowhere. Okay, maybe the searches hadn't been as discreet as he thought. “Why are you looking for him?”

“Umm...” Tim almost fell off his chair in his rush to hide the incriminating photo even deeper on his desk. 

“Related to a case,” Gibbs said, expression tight.

“A word?”

Gibbs followed Fornell into the elevator, and Tim and Ziva shared a look. What the _hell_ was going on?

\- - -

“What's going on? Why do you need Hughes?”

“How did you know?”

“The file was flagged.”

“Why?”

“Why do you need the info?”

“He's missing.”

“What happened?”

“That's what we're trying to find out.”

“Crap. Okay. John Hughes is a special case.”

“How?”

“This is unofficial, you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Once upon a time there was a sheriff in a small town in Arizona.”

“Too old for bedtime stories, Fornell.”

“This one's got an age limit. The sheriff was not a very nice guy. No one knew that as well as his son. Our sheriff didn't believe in sparing the rod, or following the letter of the law for that matter. One day he went too far, and the son, then a teenager, became the major witness in the case against his father. The boy wasn't an angel himself but the other fish was bigger, and he made a deal. He wanted to go into witness protection but that wasn't deemed necessary. Still, he managed to make a deal to get his own records sealed.”

“I don't care about his criminal record. Is the sheriff still around?”

“He was killed in prison a few years later according to the file.”

“Accomplices or family members who would care to go after the son?”

“From the nature of the case, wouldn't think so. This was all decades ago, why dig it up now?”

“Told you, he's missing.”

“Surely there is something more current?”

“He's been in law enforcement for years, there's rather too much it could have to do with.”

“He ended up on the other side of the law? Really? Go Johnny.”

“You sound like you knew him.”

“Nah, read the file on the way here. Gotta admire the kid, though. He played the system pretty well. And it took hell of a lot of courage to go against his father who had the whole town in his pocket.”

“There a photo in that file?”

“Probably. Decades old, it would be no use for you.”

“No. I don't suppose you'd lose that photo for me.”

“Jethro. What the hell is going on? Who does he work for?”

“Us.”

“He's Navy?”

“He's NCIS.”

“Good for you.”

“He's not using his old name anymore.”

“Good for him.”

“Nor his old social security number.”

“Shit. Why would you tell me this?”

“Because there is no way on this earth you are not going to look at that photo when you exit this building.”

“And I would recognize it.”

Gibbs didn't even bother to nod.

“It's DiNozzo, isn't it.” It was not a question. Gibbs just stared at him.

“Shit. The records are sealed, and flagged. No one will have a reason to see them.”

“I'm pretty sure McGee has hacked into them by now.”

“No one else, then. And I see no possible connection to the old case.”

“What are you going to do?” Gibbs forced the question out of a dry mouth. 

“Restart this elevator and go have lunch, after having warned your team not to meddle in the bureau's cases.”

“Tobias...”

“This was not an official meeting, I do not need to know anything that was said.”

“And you won't use it against us later?”

“Would I?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“I can't just lose a photo.”

“But?”

“We're getting rid of useless old files anyway. If it makes its way to a shredder pile...”

“Why would you do that?”

“When you find him, ask him about the way he got the evidence against his dad. Now that I think about it, yeah, that was a very DiNozzo move. Batshit insane, probably inspired by a movie, and dammit if it didn't work. He was 16, and had been physically and psychologically abused by his father for his whole life. I don't wonder about his criminal record. I wonder about the fact he cared enough to stop that bastard, and finding the means to do it. Do not tell him I said that.”


	5. Cloak & Dagger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your well-wishes! The guys are doing much better, and I think I've just slept for a week... (and wrote a 1000 words of wingfic when I was meant to be finishing this.)
> 
> This chapter is largely unbetaed as I rewrote a lot of it after my beta last saw it, and I just want to stop staring at it now.

Tony really felt like a criminal, taking care to avoid cameras and anything that would allow his team to find him in the middle of this clusterfuck. He told DiNozzo Senior not to use his credit card, paying in cash for the dinky hotel room to get them out of sight.

There was some investigating to be done, but he couldn't ask his team to help him in this. The letter DiNozzo Senior had received was a weird mix of a blackmail or a ransom note, with plenty of hints about the worth of his son... all without names, but for the sender on the envelope. Tony didn't even know if he was supposed to read it so that his friend was the victim or the aggressor in it. He supposed it made sense for DiNozzo Senior to look up his son before taking any action, one way or another. 

And then there was the code. Tony didn't know what to think about the code.

“The firm marked as a sender in the envelope, does he work there?” Senior asked as Tony set up the laptop he had also purchased in cash – a hotel with a wifi had been his only requirement besides not having to show his ID.

“Yeah, he's been there for over a decade,” Tony replied absently while setting up the searches he needed.

“How do you know that? You said you weren't in touch.” The older man sounded both suspicious and accusing.

“We weren't,” Tony repeated patiently. “But I was a cop. And I know his social security number. I keep up.”

“Isn't that abusing your position?”

“And how did you find me?” It wasn't like he was sending updates to his fake father about his life. Gibbs had filled the role of his next of kin since he joined NCIS and before that it had been Wendy, and before that, always a teacher or a boss. 

“I... know people,” Senior hedged.

“You know people. And like any law-abiding businessman you use them to spy on your disowned son.”

“I don't like your tone, Mr. Hughes.”

“Special Agent DiNozzo.”

“I will not call you...”

“Then call me 'sir' or shut up.”

“You can't talk to me like that!”

“Watch me.”

Five minutes with this man and he understood why Nino had been so desperate to get out from under his influence. He hated the fact this man knew the big secret that could destroy his life, but it's not like he hadn't prepared for the possibility.

“Jack is not the only one I've kept an eye on, _dad_ ,” he said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means I know why you were so eager to respond to the letter you got. You are broke, Mr DiNozzo, and struggling to keep up the appearances. It just so happens that this is a more common state of affairs than your son ever suspected.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about the fact that you're a fraud, daddio, and have always been. You're a con man, and _your_ pretense has been going on for much longer than ours.”

He let his words sink in before smiling pleasantly and gesturing towards the laptop.

“Now that we both know where we stand, how about we see about finding Jack?”

The older man seemed to deflate from his puffed up state of indignation, and joined him meekly at the desk.

“So what does my son do in the company?”

“He's dealing with antiquities. He always liked old stuff.”

“He must have gotten it from his mother... She was always redecorating the house around her new purchases.”

His tone was different, quiet and reminiscent, and Tony refrained from commenting. It looked like one glimpse of an actual man behind the suave facade. Maybe they'd get through this without him punching the other man's lights out.

\- - -

Or maybe not.

“Can you _stop_ pacing?”

“What is taking you so long? If you know where he is and what he's doing...”

“If he was happily sitting behind his desk, why would you have gotten that weird cipher letter? We can't just go in guns blazing.”

“Then we should go in and find out more!”

“That might not actually be a bad idea,” Tony conceded. “He did send you the letter as if to a client. You could go in pretending you had a meeting. Could net us something.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“Presumably. Less if you're good at pretending. Oh, I forgot. You're a pro.”

“Look who's talking.”

“True. Truce?”

“Ceasefire.”

They shook on it. Tony would never like this man, not for what he'd done to a young man who'd once been his best friend. But he could see the charm when the man bothered to turn it on. He just hoped it would be enough to get them through this.

\- - -

“Well?” Tony asked when Senior returned.

“A remarkable young woman, his secretary.”

“And?”

“It turns out Mr. Hughes has not been seen for some days. She seemed honestly baffled, and more than a little worried. She would not let me into his office, and I had to listen to a sales pitch from a colleague of his. Apparently they both specialize in rich collectors, and fulfilling their every whim. They are very good, excuse me, _really_ very good at satisfying challenging demands. I felt it was implied they wouldn't let little things like import and export restrictions to hinder their work.”

“How clearly implied?”

“I remembered the Egyptian vases Elizabeth had, they were... hard to purchase. I asked about something similar. Mr Gallagher was salivating at the prospective commission fee.”

“Well, I think I read the cipher correctly then.”

“You cracked it?”

“It wasn't that hard – a childish thing, from an adventure book that was big when we were kids. But I think... I think it means Jack wasn't in on the shady side of the business. Somehow he'd found something out, and they knew that and had him under surveillance. But maybe they didn't know he knew they knew because that letter got sent.”

“But could he know that they didn't know he knew they knew he knew? No, wait...” He seemed to count the _know_ s with his fingers. “Never mind. I mean, wasn't it a risk to send such an obvious plea for help?”

“What would it look like to an outsider?” Tony prompted.

“Like he was blackmailing someone,” Senior said slowly. “I see. The name Anthony DiNozzo said nothing to them as I'm not tied to him in any way. He couldn't contact the police... or _you_ just in case someone did read his mail and connected you to your job.”

“Maybe he figured you'd find me, if the incentive had enough zeroes.”

“The note stated my son was in danger!”

“Yes. And that there was money in it.”

“I may have found myself in a situation where that money could do a lot of good, yes.”

“I bet. Well, thank you for finding me, I'll take this from here.”

“I will not just leave while my son is in danger!”

“Which son? Fine. How about this. As soon as I find Jack, I'll make sure you get a cut of whatever he's worth at the moment.” Maybe he'd just promised Jack's savings away, maybe some dirty money he'd stolen from his company... or maybe there was no money, and it was all just a sham to lure DiNozzo Senior in. Tony didn't really care about minor details like that at the moment.

“You wouldn't have known about any of this without me! And I risked my life back there. I believe a 'cut' is not going to cut it.”

“Jack will need some money himself to get out of this mess. Half. That's the last offer.”

“Fine. About time I got something of worth out of my useless son.”


	6. Bread Crumbs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly betaed, but I couldn't stop fiddling.

“DiNozzo Senior just used his credit card!” Tim announced when the action triggered the flag he'd set.

“Where?” Gibbs and Ziva were clustered by his computer in what felt like a blink of an eye.

“He bought a plane ticket... to Monte Carlo.”

“Just one?”

“Just one. The passenger list doesn't have any other DiNozzos – or a Hughes – on it.”

“When's the flight?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“I think it is time we had a little chat with our Mister DiNozzo Senior,” Ziva said, and her smile made Tim glad he was not on her bad side. Today.

\- - -

Airport security was more than happy to aid them – it was harder to convince them that they really did just want to talk with the man and that he would be okay to fly after.

“Unless of course he has killed Tony,” Ziva said. “Then he will not fly except in a body pack. Or he would, if they could ever find his body.”

Tim did not touch that with a ten foot pole because he saw the glance Gibbs shot her and it was almost... no. Luckily, or unluckily for him, that was the moment the guards escorted Anthony DiNozzo Senior into the room.

“NCIS,” Gibbs said when the man showed no signs of recognising any of them. Well, possibly the man had not paid too much attention to anyone else in the room after he had been pointed towards a man possessing his son's name but not his face. “We have a few questions for you, Mr. DiNozzo.”

“Please,” the man said, giving them a smile that looked like it had been switched on. “Call me Tony.”

Ziva scoffed. “As if. Did I say that correctly?” she asked Tim, seemingly taking her eyes off their target but Tim knew better by now.

“Yes, you did.” Gibbs was the one to reply. He didn't sound any friendlier than her.

“We already have a Tony,” Tim explained to the man.

“But you have misplaced him momentarily, is that it?”

“Tell us _everything_ you know!” Ziva demanded, and Gibbs raised a hand to keep her back. 

“David, McGee, give us a moment,” he said, not taking his eyes off DiNozzo. 

“Boss...”

“Gibbs...”

“Now.”

\- - -

Gibbs studied the man in front of him, taking his time. He'd not had time to do so during his very brief visit to the Navy Yard. The man bore the scrutiny surprisingly well, aiming for a slightly bored look. He looked the same, a silver-haired man in a neat suit. Only the bruising around his left eye was new. 

He nodded his head towards one of the chairs in the room, set up on both sides of a long table like their interrogation rooms. 

“Take a seat, Mr. DiNozzo.”

“Thank you, Agent... Gibbs, was it?”

“Uh-huh. Now tell me what's going on.”

“I have no idea what you mean. I am on my way out of the country on a business trip, after spending a few days with my son.”

Gibbs almost smiled in relief. For what ever reason, DiNozzo seemed willing to keep Tony's secrets.

“Which son would that be?” he asked.

“I only have been blessed with the one.” The man shrugged, letting nothing show. 

“You've been in a fight recently?”

“I'm an old man, Agent Gibbs, a late night, a few nightcaps... a bathroom door, you understand.”

“The door has a hell of a right hook, then.”

“Well, I'm not pressing charges.”

“I doubt the door could pay much in compensation anyway.” There was a barely perceptible flicker in the man's eyes in reaction to Gibbs's words. So the man felt he'd benefited financially. 

“Where, exactly, was this door?”

DiNozzo revealed the name of the hotel after only the briefest hesitation.

“You spent all this time with your son?” Gibbs asked, keeping up his deceptively light questioning.

“Partly, yes.”

“And what did you get up to? Besides picking fights with bathroom doors.”

“Oh... catching up, mostly. It has been... some time since we last met.”

“Any reason for your sudden appearance in his life?”

“I am his father.”

He could put pressure on the man, to see if he'd betray Tony if it would get him out of trouble, but he'd been able to get the measure of the man by now, and he could well believe he was successful in his chosen career as a con man. They could talk around each other for hours while Tony disappeared further.

“Okay, let's cut to the chase. Hypothetically, if we knew that the man you'd been spending time with wasn't actually your son...”

“In that case, hypothetically, we would be able to talk more freely. I did not realise his identity was known to you.” 

Gibbs refused to reveal the time frame of his knowledge despite the implied question in the rising intonation of the man's words. He kept to the point.

“So, hypothetically, why are you here?”

“I might have received a note saying my son was in trouble, which naturally led me here.”

“Naturally. And the son you found wasn't the one you expected.”

“Something like that.”

“And is your son in trouble?”

“It appears so. But your agent has decided to take care of it on his own. I am, as they say, out of the picture.”

“And what does the picture look like?”

“Like blackmail. Or possibly extortion. Or just being in a wrong place at the wrong time. Agent Gibbs, I would not like to miss my flight.”

“No. Where is my agent?”

“So you have misplaced him, then.”

“Temporarily,” Gibbs conceded.

“Well. You must see my problem. If I – hypothetically – admit to knowing anything about... your agent's whereabouts, I admit to more as well, don't I? I fear that admission might come with terms like... 'accessory.' Impersonation, I believe, is a crime even if actual identity theft has not happened.”

“You might have reason to know that, yes.”

“So you see my dilemma.”

“You may have noticed this is not an official interview, Mr. DiNozzo. And you were witnessed stating Agent DiNozzo is not your son – by Federal agents.”

“I see. In that case – hypothetically – you might find a person of interest to you in an address I heard about, quite by accident, as I was leaving for the airport this morning.”

Gibbs took out a notebook and pen and the other man wrote it down – carefully not touching the pad with his fingertips, and using his own pen. Sly old bastard.

“Thank you,” he forced himself to say, not wanting to antagonise a person holding Tony's career in his elegantly manicured hands.

“And Agent Gibbs? You might want to hurry. I gathered there was a sense of urgency involved in my... son's departure from our hotel.”


	7. Brothers

“Jack!” Tony shouted. Then, after a pause: “Nino!” He glanced at the people behind him, but not one of them even blinked at the names. 

It had been a shock to see the team show up in the yard of the house he'd been staking out for some time trying to make sure if it was safe to enter. He'd had to scramble to intercept the team, and the reunion had been by necessity brief.

They seemed to know who they were about to find in the house, and Tony didn't even want to think about what that meant, or how they'd figured it out. Gibbs had met his eyes calmly, almost too calmly, seeing as he was AWOL at the moment, not to mention the more... personal aspects of the situation.

“Nino!” he shouted again, pistol ready as he cleared the rooms, moving in sync with his team as if this was any crime scene on any other day.

“Johnny?” came a weak reply from somewhere closer to the back. 

He made his way to the ramshackle living room and saw a dark head peering from behind a sofa.

“No... not Johnny... Tony,” the man mumbled in a way that made Tony frown with worry. The man sounded... bad. Wounded or exhausted or high as a fucking kite.

“Yeah, it's me, Tony. Can I come in?”

“I won't shoot... can't shoot... No gun.”

Tony didn't even spare a glance at the other agents behind him before making his way to the room. Nino was sitting propped against the back of the couch, a makeshift bandage around his left bicep, but at least the blood looked dried. He looked disheveled, like he'd slept in his suit for a week, and pale. Also, a lot older than when Tony had last seen him.

“Ciao, fratello,” he said, smiling up at Tony.

“Hola, hermano,” Tony replied, kneeling next to him to take a look at the wound. 

“Sorry to mix you into this.”

“Never mind me, why the hell did you mix _Senior_ in this?”

“I figured... if the sum was big enough... he'd find you. And you'd find me.”

“Well, here I am.”

“I'm sorry. I know we promised... but I didn't have anyone else... didn't know anyone else who could... Who are those people?”

“My colleagues.”

“They have guns.”

“Well, I'm a fed.”

“Shit. Did I... did I screw up your life?”

“I think we did that back in college.”

“I'm sorry... I... fuck.”

“Don't pass out on me now, Jack.”

“Funny... Don't mess up my own name, haven't for years. But fuck if I can get yours right. Was dad bad?”

“I punched him.”

“Thank you.”

“I also promised him half of the money to keep quiet.”

“About that...”

“There is no money. I know.”

“But won't he...”

“He's not exactly clean himself. Turns out, he's a bit of a con man.”

“Senior? But he was always so... respectable and shit.”

“Yeah, so was mine. He died in prison nonetheless.”

“One can only hope. Maybe...”

“I don't think we can arrest him without him exposing us. Who's after you?”

“My former bosses. Or, well, some hired... muscle? Does anyone call them that in real life?”

“Let's go with muscle. They shot you?”

“As I was trying to get away. I panicked and ran. I knew this place was abandoned because I handled the sale of the estate...”

“So the address will be in your files at work?”

Tony looked up to see Ziva and Gibbs taking places by the windows to keep an eye on the street. Tim was by the door, and all of them had greeted him with nothing but courtesy. It amplified the whole Twilight Zone feel of the whole thing. 

He was here with Nino. His team seemed to know his deepest, darkest, _illegal_ secret, and yet they were here to guard his back. 

“Yeah... didn't know what else to do... Luckily the water's on but all I could find to eat were some crackers... Didn't know what else to do.”

“You did good, brother. I got your message.”

“Hell of a mess as it was... I was getting paranoid about them keeping an eye on me... but Senior got it to you. And you're here.”

“And I'm here. How did you get online?”

“Saved my phone... switched it off, they can trace people with those, right? Turned it on just to post the address... figured if you'd get the note you could read the cipher... didn't want to put any numbers or addresses openly on the...”

“Yeah, I found the site, and got the address this morning. Sorry I took so long.”

“Was dad...”

“He was... just as I'd expect from your stories.”

“And you punched him?”

“Only after getting the info out of him. And the promise to not expose us.” He shrugged. “I hold his secrets, he holds ours.”

“And them?” Jack looked around, noting the other agents around the room, and Tony followed his gaze.

“Don't worry about them,” he said, proceeding to worry about them all by his own.

“What do we do now?”

“Do you have any evidence?”

“Yeah but... I was afraid to go to the cops, you know? In case... in case they'd dig deeper. On me. Us.”

“I know. It's okay. We'll take care of it now. Let's get you to a hospital.”

“I've got movement!” Gibbs shouted, and Tony helped Jack up to take a peek out of the window.

“It's them! It's them!”

“Okay, take cover, we'll take care of this.”

“Tony...”

“We're the law, remember?” He shot Jack a grin multitudes more confident than he really felt, and followed his team into the fray.


	8. Aftermath: 20 Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this ending might be a bit controversial but that's how it ended in the dream (the beginning of the discussion with Gibbs is almost directly from it) so that's what I went with! 
> 
> Hope you won't regret coming along, and thank you again so very much for all the comments and kudos. It means a lot.

The arrest had been anticlimactic in the end, the hired muscle obviously not expecting three armed professionals to be greeting them. They'd bundled them all up to the local law enforcement, along with Jack and his flash drives of evidence, which would hopefully be enough to bring down the criminal side of the antiques business.

Tony was pretty confident the cops wouldn't bother digging into Jack's life more deeply, but if he had to testify in a trial... well, that was a worry for another day. 

“Don't be a stranger,” he told Jack after making sure they were alone. “I think we've both been established in our lives well enough that unless we become public figures... we should be safe.”

“Is your team going to be a problem?”

“Don't worry about them,” he repeated, giving him a confident smile.

“If you say so.”

“Call me. And make sure they get you proper care for that scratch.”

“Scratch! I'll tell you, I haven't hurt that much since... Since _you_ got your knee busted.”

“Sure.”

Tony didn't want to go, he'd _missed_ his friend, and he didn't want to meet his team and their actual reaction now that the action was done, but...

“Take care, brother.”

\- - -

“There's one thing I don't get,” McGee said when Tony stepped into the car.

“Just one? Shoot.”

“Doctor Pitt recognized you as the player whose leg he broke. Kate told me.”

“He recognized the name, as did I. I was there, after all. The injury destroyed Anthony DiNozzo's prospects as a professional. I never even had that option. Nino played football. I played basketball. Both well enough for a scholarship, but I could never even hope to make a career out of it.”

“And I did always wonder why Spanish and not Italian,” Ziva mused. Tony didn't think that needed an answer, and McGee went on.

“I suppose it makes sense... Your stories of your father. In hindsight, they do seem to be about two different men. The idea we got about DiNozzo Senior... forgetting his son in a hotel for days, the Louis XV décor... didn't really sound like the same guy who'd do Civil War re-enactments.”

“Ah, yes. The forgetting sons in hotel rooms was all Senior. My father was more of a back of pick up trucks and locked in sheds type. And Civil War re-enactments.”

“And your mother...?”

“Same as Nino's. Drunk and no help. Died about the same time, too, although of course there was no military academy for me. I'm fairly sure my father didn't kill her, but I wouldn't bet money on it.”

Was this how it was going to be? Twenty questions? Gibbs was still to say a word.

“Can I ask a question too? How badly am I in trouble?” he asked, just as the team arrived at the Navy Yard.

“For your unscheduled leave? We covered your chest.”

“Back,” McGee corrected, and grinned – for some reason he seemed to find Ziva's mistake funnier than it actually was.

They got out of the car, and Tony took a quick look around the parking lot. There was no one in sight.

“And...” he prompted, waving his hand to indicate himself.

“I do not care what your name is,” Ziva said, serious now. “I know you. And I will always have your... back.”

Tony could only stare at her at the rare solemn moment, then turned to McGee, who just nodded his head. “Tony,” he said, not putting undue stress on the name which only highlighted the promise in his word. 

They turned towards their own cars, and that seemed to be it, for them. 

He did not deserve this team. And speaking of things he didn't deserve... he turned to look at Gibbs again, still seated in the driver's seat. 

He needed to have a discussion with his boyfriend. 

And possibly pack his things.

\- - -

That conversation... did not go the way he'd expected either.

“I said, _no matter what_ ,” Gibbs simply said, referring to a conversation they'd had what felt like ages ago, when they first became a couple.

“But I'm a fraud, my whole life is... I don't even know how many laws I've broken. Do we count every time I show my ID anywhere? When I enter the Navy Yard?”

“No matter what,” Gibbs repeated. 

“But...”

“I tracked down and killed the man responsible for the deaths of my wife and daughter.”

“What?”

“Now you have something on me, too. We're both criminals.”

“Jethro...”

“I told you to be sure. When I hold on to someone, I don't let go easily.”

“I love you, you know that, right?”

“It was implied.”

“And you actually love me.”

“Thought that was obvious.”

Tony had to laugh at that. Obvious. Yes. 

“But what if the truth comes out at some point?”

“You have everyone in your corner. You have _Fornell_ in your corner. I'm not worried.”

“Fornell? Wait, what?”

“Abby wants to know if you _really_ hid a listening device in a lollipop.”

“Fornell. In my corner. Check.”

“Tony...”

And there it was. His name. _His_ name, and there was no difference in the tone, or the face, or the eyes of this man. He smiled. 

“That's me.”

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more of my dreams, I'm [@dreamingniki](https://twitter.com/dreamingniki/) at Twitter; for social stuff, I'm on Tumblr as [NikiChidon](http://nikichidon.tumblr.com/) and I might actually start using it for something one of these days (I have maybe seven posts at the moment...). If you have prompts for extra content for any of my stories, come poke me there or comment on the story itself!
> 
> (There will be a "deleted scenes" type of a post for this story, because the scene Tony and Gibbs refer to demanded to be written. And Abby wanted a say as well.)


End file.
